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Ex-Giant says team looks 'mentally drained'

EAST RUTHERFORD -- Justin Tuck laughed when he heard the question about how the New York Giants are going through yet another late-season slump – one coach Tom Coughlin hoped to avoid when he set his preseason

EAST RUTHERFORD -- Justin Tuck laughed when he heard the question about how the New York Giants are going through yet another late-season slump – one coach Tom Coughlin hoped to avoid when he set his preseason goal of starting strong and finishing strong.

"That's funny, because that became a discussion between me and some people today," Tuck said.

"Ask Antonio Pierce," Tuck said, referring to the player he replaced as defensive captain two years ago. "I'll give you that hint. Pierce had a comment about something of that nature, and I agreed with him."

Pierce is now an analyst for ESPN. He still has the pulse of the Giants' locker room, and Tuck's comment proves it.

What was Pierce's observation, exactly?

"I mentioned they were mentally drained," Pierce told USA TODAY Sports. "No energy on defense. As a team, they haven't played with a lot of passion. Maybe a lot of emotion went in to making the run they did at the end of (last) season, Hurricane Sandy, and like the rest of the nation, feeling the effect affect of the Connecticut shooting, which directly impacted some players."

This is an opinion. While Tuck agrees with it and those unspecified others do as well, it's certainly not a blanket statement and there are those in the locker room who would dispute it. They would refuse to use it as an excuse.

Victor Cruz didn't use it, not even after a heart-wrenching few days for him in which he visited the family of Jack Pinto, a 6-year-old victim in the Newtown shooting who was a huge Cruz fan. And none of the players was willing to say superstorm Sandy, which knocked many of them out of their homes for at least a few days at the beginning of a Giants slump, was a contributing factor.

But those are the public comments. The private talks, such as Tuck had with his teammates Thursday, are clearly more honest and blunt.

"To say we weren't affected, no, that would be foolish," Coughlin said of the storm during an interview with WFAN radio in New York last month. "That would be naïve on my part."

And it might be naïve for Giants players to think they can just snap out of their mental rut.

The reigning Super Bowl champions are reeling, having turned a 6-2 start into an 8-6 record with two games remaining. Win those two (on Sunday against the Ravens in Baltimore and Dec. 30 at home against the Philadelphia Eagles), and they're in the playoffs. Lose this Sunday while the Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins and Seattle Seahawks all win, and they'll be eliminated before they get to Week 17.

It's an annual event for the Giants to make things much more difficult than they need to be. Last Sunday's 34-0 loss to the Atlanta Falcons marked the sixth time the past seven years they've lost in Week 15.

"You mean why we play well one week and then we don't? It's disturbing," Coughlin said. "You can ask all the questions in the world about solving it or knowing what the reason is. "I could give you a couple of opinions, but the fact of the matter is it's two games and if we somehow can win two games, we're in the playoffs."

Except they could have been in a much better position.

"It's being able to build that kind of momentum and stay with it," Coughlin said. "Now is it any different than it was a year ago? No, it's the same scenario. So we have an awful lot to do."

It's the same scenario in that the Giants' six-game winning streak through the Super Bowl began in Week 16 after an inexplicably flat performance in a loss to the Washington Redskins a week earlier. Point being, the opportunity is there for another six-game run.

But while the scenario is the same, the feeling is different. Mental fatigue is wearing on the Giants this team and Tuck seems to have been the closest to admitting it – by endorsing the remarks by Pierce.

"Is everyone on board to make another run?" Pierce said. "Last year they said, 'All in.' Well, what is it this year? I haven't heard anything but, 'We have been here before.'"

"You don't know what you're going to get from us. We're not consistent until somebody's going to get fired or our backs are against the wall or it's all or nothing," Pierre-Paul said. "It's where we're at right now. It's either all or nothing and we'll be packing our stuff to get out of here early, and I ain't trying to go home early."